Google’s spam engineer Matt Cutts takes time in this video to clarify further how Google feels about guest blogging and answers if you use guest blog posts will your website be penalized for placement. This is an excellent video and well worth the minute or two to watch.
Here is the synopsis of the video in a nutshell.
1. If you allow just anyone without review to post to your blog or you accept blog posts that have been posted widely on the Web already, your own site’s reputation can be impugned by this tactic and placement may drop based on Google’s new filters.
2. If you are allowing articles that have been spun (meaning multiple versions created automatically with software changing the word order in an effort to provide seemingly “unique” content for each site you send to) to be used on your website or blog, you will most likely have your site penalized in Google for these activities.
3. Matt says point blank that if you are doing many guest blog posts or allowing many guest blog posts that may be of questionable syndication on your own website, that this is a “pretty good indicator of bad quality”. “If your website links to or receives links from sites like this, this can lower your own site’s reputation.” “Yes, Google is willing to take action against sites that are doing low quality or spammy guest blogging.”
My recommendation to you is that if you accept guest blog pieces, they should be written uniquely for your website. I would recommend you use a service like Copyscape Premium to test if a piece sent to you is unique. I would not post articles that appear in many locations on your own website. Better yet get your own blog writer. I invite you to review our blog writing service program.
If you do guest blog posts for others sites, I would be very selective of the sites you choose to write for and consider limiting your content to only one or two really high quality sites. Make the inbound links to your website be meaningful and not hurtful to your overall placement strategy.